Two weeks ago, a Monmouth poll found that Democrat Evan Bayh had a 6-point lead over Republican Todd Young in the Indiana Senate race, but that same pollster now finds the race tied:
Every public poll conducted since August has shown Bayh with a lead until now. It’s possible that the FBI investigation related to Hillary Clinton’s emails is dragging down Bayh in a Republican-leaning state, but Chris Deaton recently observed that there are three other issues hurting Bayh. On October 8, the AP broke the news that “Evan Bayh spent substantial time during his last year in the Senate searching for a job in the private sector, even as he cast votes on issues of interest to his future corporate bosses.” Then on October 21 the AP had another scoop that Bayh hadn’t spent a single night in his Indiana condo the last year of his Senate term. But perhaps most damaging of all was more bad news last week about Obamacare’s rising costs.
As Chris Deaton noted, “the Department of Health and Human Services announced that insurance premiums for a 27 year old with a midlevel Obamacare plan would spike by an average of 25 percent next year. Although the number and the context vary by state—that specific figure is set to fall by three percent in Indiana, but the Hoosier exchange has been fluid, with many consumers ditching high-cost plans on the exchange for Medicaid (expanded in 2015) and the state government approving rate hikes for most insurers—the news has renewed concerns about the health care law’s stability. Indiana residents, like those in many other states, face dwindling options in 2017, as multiple carriers have announced they will depart the market. All told, Obamacare is still burdensome to defend. Bayh’s opponent, Republican representative Todd Young, has made it an issue on the campaign trail and the debate stage.”
